Schokland was once an island in the Zuiderzee, a long, narrow strip of peat and clay surrounded by an inland sea that constantly threatened to swallow it. For centuries, its inhabitants lived on raised mounds and fought a losing battle against the water, as storms ate away at the island's edges. By the mid-nineteenth century, life had become so precarious that in 1859 the Dutch government ordered the island to be evacuated. Then, in the twentieth century, the Dutch did something extraordinary: they enclosed the Zuiderzee with a dam, the Afsluitdijk, completed in 1932, and drained large parts of it to create new land. The Noordoostpolder, drained in 1942, swallowed Schokland, and the former island now rises slightly above the surrounding fields, a long green ridge in a flat landscape of farmland. In 1995, Schokland became the first Dutch site to be listed by UNESCO, as a symbol of the Netherlands' heroic struggle against the water.
Today you can walk along the old island, with its church, a museum, the remains of the harbour and the wooden posts that once protected the shore from the waves. The contrast is striking: on one side, the remains of an island life shaped by the sea; on the other, the perfectly straight lines of the polder, with its fields, ditches and farmhouses.
Urk, a few kilometres west, was another island in the Zuiderzee, now joined to the polder, and it remains a fishing town with a strong identity, a tight old village of narrow streets and a lighthouse looking out over the IJsselmeer. Emmeloord, the main town of the polder, was built from scratch after the war, with a water tower in the centre.
The riding is flat, straight and windy. The roads of the polder run in long straight lines between fields, with right-angle turns, and the wind blows across the open landscape with nothing to stop it. It is not a destination for curves, but the sense of space, the enormous sky and the history of the place make it interesting. Watch for cyclists, who have priority on many roads, and for tractors.
Emmeloord has fuel, shops and restaurants, and Urk has fish restaurants serving fresh catch. Try kibbeling, battered fish pieces, at a stand in Urk harbour.